Outdoor Destinations in SilverStar, BC

Brewer's Pond Skating – SilverStar

Brewer's Pond is two and a half acres of natural ice in SilverStar's Adventure Park, and skating on it feels the way skating is supposed to feel: outdoors, under the mountain, with a fire crackling at the edge and music drifting over the snow. The resort's Zamboni keeps the surface as smooth as a pond allows, so it suits everyone from first-timers to figure skaters, and there is room for a proper game of pond hockey — one shinny game and one net game at a time, no slap shots or raised pucks, fifteen-minute turns when others are waiting, helmets recommended. From early January to late February you can even watch the resort's staff battle it out on Wednesday evenings. Skating is included in the resort's My1Pass day ticket and season pass; everyone on the ice, tots included, needs a valid ticket and skates (no shoes), and skate rentals, stick rentals and sharpening are at the Brewer's Pond Base beside the pond, which opens fifteen minutes before the pond does. Circling the pond is the Bear Byway, an interpretive loop of seven bear sculptures by BC artists with signs on bear behaviour and safety — pick up the scavenger-hunt sheet at Guest Services or Tube Town and trade a completed one for a sticker. Because this is real ice, the pond's status can change without warning; check before you come. Tube Town Café & Bar is right there for the warm-up afterwards.

Ravenwood Snowshoe Dinner Tours – SilverStar

Ravenwood is SilverStar's newest way to spend a winter evening: a guided snowshoe through the darkening forest to the new Ravenwood Cabin, where dinner is waiting. The resort bills it as an evening of adventure and gourmet delights, and that is the shape of it — a short snowshoe on packed trail with a guide (about two kilometres last season), the cabin's lights appearing through the snow-heavy branches, and a warm room and a meal cooked by the resort's kitchen team at the end of it. It runs as an evening programme from the village and pairs beautifully with a day of skiing or a weekend at the resort when you want one night that is nothing like the others. Ravenwood Cabin opened for the 2025/26 season; dates, seatings and pricing for the coming winter are announced by the resort and booked through Guest Services ([email protected]), so check the SilverStar winter-activities page before you plan around it, and dress for a night walk in the mountains.

SilverStar Cross-Country Ski Trails

SilverStar's own cross-country network is 55 kilometres of daily-groomed trail that starts right at the village — and with the neighbouring Sovereign Lake trails it forms the 105-kilometre system the resort calls the largest daily-groomed cross-country network in Canada. The trails are graded green, blue and black like the downhill runs, so a first-timer can spend the day on gentle loops while strong skiers head for the long climbs and the upper trails, and the Nordic ticket includes two lift rides so you can start high and glide home. Warming huts along the way make natural lunch stops, the viewpoints on both the lower and upper trails are worth the detour, a lit night loop keeps the season going after dark, and designated dog-friendly trails let the whole family come. Cross-country skiing is one of the seven activities on the resort's My1Pass, rentals and lessons are in the village, and the resort's volunteer Mountain Hosts run free daily cross-country tours that sample the network and point you toward more. Keep your pass visible on the trails, leave the ski chariot off the lifts, and check the grooming report before you clip in. SilverStar's Nordic season opens on November 20, 2026, a week ahead of the alpine lifts. For the club side of the same network, see Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre.

SilverStar Fat Bike Trails

Who hasn't wanted to try a bike built for snow? SilverStar keeps 15 kilometres of single- and double-track fat-bike trail packed and signed through the winter, threading the same forest the snowshoers and cross-country skiers use, and the resort rents fat bikes in the village so you don't need to own one. The rules are simple and worth knowing before you roll out: tyres at least 3.75 inches wide and under 8 psi, a helmet at all times, stay on the designated fat-bike trails (Brian's and Eric's trails are not among them), give pedestrians the right of way, and stay off the trails when the temperature climbs above zero — soft snow ruts for everyone. Fat biking is one of the seven activities on the resort's My1Pass, or pick up a trail ticket at the ticket office; the Nordic Operations team checks conditions weekly, so look at the latest report and the trail map before you set out. It is a genuinely different way to see the mountain, and one of the few places in the Okanagan where winter riding is groomed for.

SilverStar Mountain Resort

SilverStar is the North Okanagan's four-season mountain resort above Vernon, and in winter it is a whole village of things to do rather than a single ski hill. The alpine terrain runs to 3,304 acres and 133 runs over 760 metres of vertical, served by ten lifts including the Des Schumann Summit Express gondola, with long green and blue cruisers off the front side, steep powder-filled chutes on the Putnam Creek backside and three terrain parks; on Friday and Saturday nights the lights come on for four kilometres of groomed night skiing and the Bannister Night Park at Silver Queen. The resort's My1Pass idea is what sets it apart: one day ticket or season pass unlocks seven activities — downhill, cross-country skiing on the resort's 55-kilometre half of Canada's largest daily-groomed Nordic network, 16 kilometres of snowshoe trail, 15 kilometres of fat-bike trail, skating on Brewer's Pond, tubing at Tube Town and (with a season pass) night skiing — each of which has its own page on Okanagan Roam. Volunteer Mountain Hosts lead free guided tours of the alpine and Nordic trails every morning from Town Hall, snow-cat dinners run to Paradise Camp on the backside, and the new Ravenwood cabin hosts snowshoe dinner tours. The Nordic trails open on November 20, 2026 and the alpine season runs November 27, 2026 to April 4, 2027. Summer turns the same slopes into the SilverStar Bike Park — the resort describes it as one of Canada's best downhill mountain-bike experiences, with downhill, enduro and cross-country riding, skills areas and a pump track — while walkers and trail runners have 16 km of forest and mountain trails: the easy Paradise, Mountain View, Tin Tin and Sidewinder loops out of the village, the hiking-only Silver Queen Trail, and, from the top of the Des Schumann Summit Express gondola at 1,915 metres — some 300 metres above the village — the Ridge Walk (no bikes), the Attridge Scenic Loop and the Alpine Meadows. Hikers pick up a complimentary trail day ticket at the Ticket Office; Monday to Thursday the summit is reached by the Comet Express after a gentle 20-minute walk down to the lift. The resort publishes no dog rule for its trails, and the surrounding regional district requires dogs on leash unless in a designated off-leash area. Lessons, rentals, restaurants, cafés and lodging are in the resort village.

SilverStar Snowshoe Trails

Sixteen kilometres of singletrack snowshoe trail weave through SilverStar's forest and the lower cross-country country, and they are the slow, quiet way to see the mountain: no lift lines, no learning curve, just the crunch of snow under your feet and the trees closing in around you. Trails range in difficulty and are marked with hand-carved wooden signs and reflective markers, so you can be out in the early evening blue light without losing your way, and there are two trailheads — one at the village and one at the Adventure Park by Brewer's Pond — so you can start from wherever you are staying or playing. Dogs are welcome on all the snowshoe trails on a leash, which makes this the best outing on the mountain for the family member who can't ski. Snowshoeing is one of the seven activities on the resort's My1Pass, or buy a trail ticket on its own, and snowshoe rentals are available in the village. The resort's Nordic team surveys the trails weekly; pick up a trail map, go at your own pace, and finish at Tube Town Café or the pond.

Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre

Sovereign Lake is Canada's largest cross-country ski and snowshoe club, set inside Silver Star Provincial Park 22 km east of Vernon up Silver Star Road, just 2 km west of SilverStar Mountain Resort. The club grooms roughly 58 km of trails for classic and skate skiing — about 12 km novice, 14 km intermediate and 32 km advanced — plus 14 km of marked snowshoe trails, with day tickets, season passes, rentals and lessons available at the lodge. Dogs are permitted only on the designated dog ski trails, under full control, and never on the other ski trails or the snowshoe trails; dog owners are asked to use the lower parking lot, where a relatively flat 400-metre loop makes an easy first outing. BC Parks notes that the day lodge has the park's only flush toilets in winter. Signage on Highway 6 and Highway 97 points the way.

Tube Town – SilverStar Tube Park

Tube Town is SilverStar's answer to the question every family asks after a morning on the slopes: what now? Set beside Brewer's Pond in the resort's Adventure Park, a few minutes' walk from the village, it is a proper tube park rather than a hill and a hope — truck-sized inner tubes with safety handles, several lanes of packed snow, and a tube lift that carries you and your tube back to the top so you can slide, spin and swerve run after run without a single uphill trudge. Tubing is one of the seven activities bundled into the resort's My1Pass, and day tickets are sold at the Tube Town Ticket Office on site. Kids need to be at least three years old to ride, and anyone under 42 inches tall tubes with a paying adult; everyone rides their own tube, and ski boots stay in the locker. Next door, SilverStar's fenced mini-snowmobile track puts children aged six to twelve (under 100 lb) at the controls of a pint-sized Arctic Cat for supervised laps — tickets at the Brewers Pond Base, with an adult alongside. When you are done, Tube Town Café & Bar is right there for hot chocolate or a mulled wine, and the skating pond is a short step away. Tube Town can close without notice when the weather turns, so check the resort's hours before you head up.

Vernon Snowmobile Association – Silver Star Trails

The Vernon Snowmobile Association is the oldest snowmobile club in British Columbia, riding since 1967, and its 160 kilometres of regularly groomed trails climb through Silver Star Provincial Park, 22 kilometres up Silver Star Road from Vernon, next door to the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre. The mix is what makes it: signed trails for cruising, open meadows and bowls for playing, terrain that suits snowmobiles, snowbikes and tracked ATVs alike, and two shelters — the Silver Star Chalet and the Armstrong Cabin — that double as warm-up and emergency stops. A day trail pass is $15 per machine, valid for the day of purchase, bought online or at the information kiosk at the entrance to the parking lot (cash in the envelope, keep the receipt as your proof). The lot is shared with cross-country skiers, snowshoers and dog walkers, so the club asks riders to read its parking-lot plan before arriving; the kiosk map shows the trail system, and the same terrain is used by skiers and snowshoers, so yield and ride considerately.

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